When you think of the Florida Panthers, you don’t generally think of a team that has a tremendous home ice advantage. Hell, when you think of the Panthers, you generally don’t think that they’ve got much of a presence at home in Sunrise at all.

With that kind of set up in Florida, things might seem desperate for the struggling Panthers but that’s not stopping team president Michael Yorkmark from doing things differently to try and attract fans to come out. With the Panthers making so many changes and additions this summer, it’s time for the team to capitalize on things. The way they’re trying to do it next season is to make things a bit more rowdy and give home games more of a college sports feel by having sections of seats that won’t be welcome to visiting fans.

Sunrise Sports & Entertainment announced today the new Florida Panthers Red Zone seating section which targets some of the most passionate and committed Cats fans. Tickets start at $25 per game and include a red Panthers fan pack, the chance to win a red 2012 Ford Focus (full and half-season plans only) provided by South Florida Ford, and the promise that no visiting fans are allowed in the Red Zone.

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“The Red Zone is a place for passionate and committed Florida Panthers fans – that may not already be season ticket holders – to be among their dedicated peers and set the tone for every Cats home game at the BankAtlantic Center,” said SSE president & COO Michael R. Yormark. “In addition, our great partners at South Florida Ford are giving fans an opportunity to ‘see red’ even more in a 2011 Ford Focus. The Red Zone is just the latest extension of our ‘We See Red’ campaign and the full-scale red conversion of our franchise including the new red home jerseys, red lower bowl seats, red paint and signage in the arena and the new blood that will be featured on the Panthers’ opening night roster.”

As with all things having to do with the Panthers at home, there’s a sponsorship tie-in, but their mode of attack here in playing things up for the home fans to feel more comfortable at home is a smart one. Let’s face it, if you’re a fan of a team that doesn’t draw tons of fans and has a lot of visiting fans coming in on a nightly basis and making themselves at home (sometimes even with the Panthers’ good graces) feeling cozy at home can be hard.

Doing things this way and having, potentially, one part of the building being overly rowdy with a home section gives off the air of being like a college hockey game. If you’ve never been to a college game, the student sections are the most raucous parts of the arena and help create an atmosphere that can change the feeling of the game. If the Panthers can harness that sort of crowd reaction and turn their arena into an advantage for the home team, that’ll be as startling of a change as all the roster overhaul that went down this summer.

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.